On Friday I got an iPhone. It was a hideous expense, but I thought of it less as a phone than as a cute little pocket mac. This marks one of the very few times I've given in to peer pressure, since almost everyone at BLT has one already. This has had some of interesting side effects:

• I do not like making purchases, let alone purchases over $20, so I have tremendous guilt over the expenditure. Could the money have been better spent? Should I have donated it? Should I have saved it? What else could I have done to better myself with it? I view money as capital -- leverage for life improvement, rather than just the power to purchase, so a purchase had better have added value. I'm still not convinced that the iPhone's functional features (vast as they are) overshadow it's toy features (vast as they are)
• I feel my phone phobia withering away. This was shocking! I've always hated, *hated*, using the phone, especially when talking to strangers. I'll do everything I can to avoid calling someone I don't or barely know, even to my own detriment. But I like using the phone feature of the iPhone. I like seeing the person's face that I am calling (it is a static image). I like pressing the red button. I like scrolling through the contacts list. I like the big number buttons. Most of all I love the call quality -- it's a vast improvement over the last three cell phones I've had. I've no qualms about maintaining a two year contract at this point.
• I find I want to curl up with it when I sleep (I've done this occasionally with laptops, so maybe I'm very weird or maybe it's time to get a puppy or a kid, or hell, maybe a teddy bear), but I am afraid of crushing it. It's probably a bad idea just from the RF exposure. The thing is, I bonded emotionally to it
• I'm less stressed on the bus (and almost missed my stops a couple of times). Sometimes it's fun to watch the scenery go by, other times you just want to not notice the smelly homeless guy or the domestic dispute playing out behind you. My iPod has been great about tuning out most of the annoyances (and telling bus strangers I'm not available for lengthy discussions on various topics), but the iPhone just sucks you in completely. A twenty minute ride turns into catching up on email, or a couple of games, or web browsing, or following your location in real time on a map (so freaking cool, it's right out of a James Bond movie).

So yes, I adore my phone. But I still feel guilty.

The company I work for, Blue Lava Technologies, has just released it's flagship software and accompanying website, iLovephotos.



The software, which runs on OS X, manages and shares your photo library (sorry windows peeps, you'll have to wait a bit -- but really, maybe this is the extra push you need to come over to efficient, fun, intelligent computing on the Mac platform). If you use iPhoto, it integrates and syncs with it. None of your images are altered or touched in anyway. If you move photos around, iLovePhotos keeps up.

The best part, IMHO, is that you can search your photo library by what's in the photo. You don't have to remember file names, or when you took the image. This requires a bit of legwork when you are setting up iLovePhotos -- you will need to "tag" your photos with information. This is easier than it sounds because iLovePhotos automatically detects faces in photos and it is a fast (and actually pretty fun) process to match faces to tags with information about the person. You can also create non-person tags, for instance if you want to group all your black and white photos together, or all the photos from a particular event, or all the photos that you took with your wide angle lens -- you can. You are free to organize your photos any which way you like with few restrictions. As a photographer with a zillion and twelve photos, this feature makes me very happy :-)



Once you have tagged your photos (or even partially), you can use the Visual Search bar (I call it VS), to rapidly and visually sort the collection and find specific images (there is also a text search). Combine two tags to see all the photos associated with both, or invert the search and find only the photos associated with both tags (extremely useful for honing in on a particular image). You can search this way with any number of tags.

The application also offers sharing. Select a photo(s), hit "Share", optionally select people to share with (using your people tags), and upload to the website. iLovePhotos also creates "smart" slideshows based on your tags, and you can save and share slideshows as videos.

Just to disclaim, I am a pro-choice, evolutionist progressive. The state of the planet's climate and what we are doing to manage it is my number 1 political issue, with civil liberties (for all people everywhere) a close second. I do want small government, but I also want that small government to stay out of my business and not tell me what to do with my body or my brain or my heart. I should not like Sarah Palin, but I do.

Sarah Palin, for me, is more an idea than a person (thought she is quite a person). She is totally accepted, unblinkingly, by conservatives, by Republicans, as a VP candidate, a 72-year-old heartbeat away from the most impressive job on anyone's resume. She, a woman who lactates, is a hair's breath away from a desk in an oval room, the most powerful office to be held in human history. That this is accepted so unflinchingly by so many, who, traditionally, have put down women as secondary to men, makes me so, fucking, happy.

It's like the curse of the Bambino. If a democratic woman had gotten into office, the curse would be broken, but the Democrats only got as far as Geraldine Ferraro sheepishly backing out of the race. No, it took the hardened, chiseled, marlboro manly-man's party to break the curse.

John McCain made the most brilliant decision of his career (possibly his lifetime) by risking it all on a lactating hockey mom from BFE Alaska. LACTATING! Still can't get over the awesomeness of that. I think it does say a lot about McCain -- cagey maybe, but smart, very smart, and very, shockingly, progressive in it's own weird way, because now no one will think twice about a woman in the oval office, of either party.

I feel like I've had brain constipation the past few weeks, but I found out in July that my mom has cancer, and it was like being socked in the solar plexus. The first day I ended up wandering around Walmart for a few hours with nothing but duct tape in my basket, worried and fretting. My dad and my brother spent the first two weeks freaking out (my dad even made plans to sell the house and move in with me, which is a premise for a sitcom right there (no offense dad)). My mom's sisters were freaking out, worried their baby sister would be the first to go (my mom is the second youngest of 5 sisters and 2 brothers, all living).

Of all of us in the family, my mom took the news with ease and a positive attitude, but even she stopped journaling for a few days (she has fastidiously kept a journal for 30 some-odd years -- everyday). Cancer is really fucking scary. People in my family have ridiculous longevity -- living to 90 and beyond is expected and normal, and we don't get Alzheimer's, so it's a pretty decent longevity. Even my mom's younger sister has been recently cured of the Type I diabetes that would have cut short her life (she is in an experimental transplant program and no longer needs insulin injections). So it seemed really, really, really unfair that my mom could die at 62, especially considering all she's been through in her life and how awesome and compassionate a person she is. I was just as mad at that as I was sad and worried about the diagnosis.

After the first day or so I recovered from the initial shock and went into problem solving mode. I voraciously read about her type of cancer, diffuse large B cell lymphoma. I scoured online, and trekked to the main Honolulu library and lugged back every book on lymphoma, and a couple on cellular biology (I was so thorough that I know how to diagnose slides for lymphoma now). In a way I was avoiding the emotional aspects of the problem, but reading gave me hope. I have the knowledge to understand her treatment and know what her options are. I also found out that this cancer is curable.

A few weeks later (after the initial surgery to remove the tumor growing in her tear duct), she went in for an MRI body scan. No other tumors were found. Awesome news! It was a huge weight off her, and a weight off everyone else in the family as well. It meant that she was likely cured just from the surgery. She will have to go through a round of chemo to catch any stray cancer cells in her system that might later form tumors. She starts next week. The barbarism of chemo makes me angry, that so many people have to go through it, that it is so rough on the body (it's basically poisoning all the fast growing cells in your body so they die, so it's not just cancer cells), but the alternative is worse. I'm sure she will go through the process with grace, humor, and a positive attitude.

I needed a new rashguard for paddleboarding, so I decided to get one this morning. I didn't feel like trying anything on (and you need to with the way they fit). I decided to go to Honolua Surf Co. because they are cheap and the clerks aren't snotty. I also kept thinking that I needed quarters to do laundry, and since I rarely carry cash they are in short supply for me.

So get to the store, walk in, and there are like 5 security guards from the plaza. Not sure what is going on. I take a couple of minutes and pick out two rashguards I think will be a close fit. Now there are several police officers, one of whom has started harassing a guy in one of the fitting rooms (I figure he's a shoplifter, but not sure). I can't try on the clothes. Nor can I pay because the credit card machines are down (based on what little the clerk could tell me, it might have been related). So I run out and get cash (conspicuously leaving the clothes with the clerk so the police don't tackle me). I come back, pay, get 3 quarters in my change, and have enough cash left over to keep getting coins with my change wherever I go throughout the day, laundry problem solved. When I got home, both rashguards fit and I decided to keep them both (avoided the hassle of a return), so it all worked out in the end -- but it kind of worked out too well -- was really weird! I almost feel guilty because I lot of people were inconvenienced in order for my day to go so well so far.

I have to admit, I was a bit shocked by this. I feel pretty good about what we are doing at Blue Lava, but I guess I thought the competition would be more furious. Lorenz's pitch made the top of the list and has the most positive buzz. So cool!

I did a soviet-era theme for fun. View here.

Okay, now that I've freaked out my parents with that title, I went on an early morning walk down to the beach and made an interesting observation. Women outnumber men about 10 to 1 on the beach at that time of day. It was really weird. Most were jogging or strolling or swimming, generally out getting exercise -- of the few men, they were surfers coming or going, or among family groups that included women. Even among surfers, where men usually outnumber women about 5 to 1, the ratio was more 1:1. Are women more concerned about skin cancer? Are they more typically morning people (which does not include me, since early morning is the end of my day)? Do they allocate more time for the beach? This is going to bug me more than it should. If you are a sociology grad student, please study this and let me know!

On Saturday I gave a presentation on blogging to the local chapter of the RWA. Apparently I drew out some of the more reclusive authors -- which is cool; it's always nice to have an interested audience. While for geeks blogging is old news, it's not totally adopted by the professional writing community. The main thrust of my presentation was to encourage writers to use blogging as a marketing tool. I got lots of questions and we went over time. I even got a huge ego boost when a member said she had spent a couple of hours reading my blog the night before ("You love me, you really love me!")

Several members were enthusiastic enough that they signed up with Blogger. One of the converts is the very funny Michael Little, the current chapter president. Check it out!

My boss Lorenz just completed his "elevator pitch" for the upcoming TechCrunch 50 conference in San Francisco. You can view it here (please vote us up!):




Also, you can learn more here:

I had a slightly frightening encounter yesterday. I was in Barnes & Noble (I'm in a bookstore at least once a day it seems), looking the back cover of an edition of Ethan Frome when I man approached me. He was obviously homeless (though thankfully recently showered), and quite mute. He was able to grunt, and made use of rudimentary signs. He carried a digital camera in one hand, and was pointing at it (something is wrong with society when homeless people have digital gadgets but no place to live).

"Oh, you want me to take your picture?" I asked. Grunt, grunt. Then he nodded. Then he moved in and put his arm around me, the other hand extended with the camera, and before I knew it, he had taken a picture of us together. I must have looked like a deer in headlights. He gave me the thumbs up, then grunted, then snapped one of me alone (my jaw agape). He thumbsed-up again, then moved toward me (I was quite frozen), and ever so gently kissed me on the cheek. Then he put his hand over his heart, made a thumping motion, then pointed at me. Thankfully he left me alone after that.

What do these two titular things have in common? Why writing prompts of course! On Sunday, Leslee and I hung out doing writing prompts. We came up with the idea of trying to rewrite sentences (passing back and forth) to try to come up with creative ways of retooling a concept. We limited ourselves to one sheet of paper for each exercise. Here are the results, Leslee's sentences are in red, mine are in blue:

---

The avocado moldered under the fridge.

Under the fridge, the avocado was moldering, much as my life was—stagnant and rotting.

My life was moldering, rotting, stagnant; like the avocado under the fridge.

The avocado became a metaphor for my life, once vibrantly green with life, now a lump of mold, green still, but stagnant with rot.

My life, once, green, now moldered, still and stagnant, like the avocado under the fridge.

Green mold under the fridge—that's what my life had become.

My life was nothing more than the dead space under the fridge where bits of things lingered and moldered until they were dust.

Dead space, an avocado molding under the fridge, my life—they are all the same.

My life, my life! Dead space under the fridge.

Avocados mold, life decays, there are some things the fridge simply cannot save.

Save the avocados before they die. The fridge is no saint to time.

---

My stomach churned as the boat tossed on the roiling sea.

The boat tossed as the sea roiled and my stomach churned.

My mouth foamed. I regurgitated. The ocean roiled and licked and bit the boat.

I spat upon the foaming sea,
the ocean roiled and
spit on me.
How vain to think my spat
could make the ocean flat
Tis vanity indeed to
walk upon the sea
as only Jesus could
the one and true
the divine Holy See

The calm glassy sea was a distant memory. I threw up, passed out on the deck, and rolled aft, breaking my nose.

I awoke to a glassy sea, my stomach no longer churning. The boat floated still and silent—an obedient servant to the winds, now mercifully still. The aftermath of the storm was beginning—an unrelenting sun shining down and no fresh water anywhere.

The storm made obedient my stomach to its fits and spells.

---

My silver mirror gleamed in his presence.

All around him was an aura that shone bright, spilling past the edges of my silver mirror and filling the room with his resplendent light.

His aura shattered my mirror.

My mirror shattered under the brightness of his aura—Divinity incarnate, but vain enough to look into the mirror—another fallen angel in the making.

The arrival of Lucifer was quite surprising. The intensity of his aural light burst my hallway mirror. Three weeks later, I found a piece of glass lodged under the carpet on the stairway landing.

'Lucifer & The Heavenly Lights' were the headliners at the rock-fest. In the mirror were their cocaine tracks—like their music, they were neat, linear, and white-hot deadly.

I laid dying, cocaine my accomplice, when Lucifer emerged from my mirror in a burst of silver light. That was when my life began again.

A cocaine death, blessed by Lucifer is a better high than any service blessed by a priest.

Lucifer gave me enough Novocain to last the night.

---

The expanse of time felt like a pregnant pause.

Time expanded into a pregnant pause.

A pregnant pause hung in the air, filling the expanse of time and space between us.

Between us was a pregnant pause; time expanded.

Between the expanse of time, a pregnant pause filled the space—and still nothing remained.

Nothing remained between us. The pregnant expanse of space and time collapsed. [the pregnant pause was driving me nuts at this point...]

Between us was the void—a pregnant pause, once filled with love, now just a dead zone. [...and it's back...]

Love once filled the space between us—now a void. [...taking it out again...]

Love could fill the pregnant pause, if only our love hadn't perished in the void. [...arghh...]

The void ate up our love. [...attempting a different metaphor to see if it would stick...]

The pregnant void, birthed our love, yet again, and again. [...sigh]

The afterbirth of our love was the void. [I did end up with the last line, haha! No offense Leslee :-) ]

---

The kneeling nun said a silent prayer to a God she no longer believed in.

God looked down and judged the nun, kneeling, non-believing, but praying. Silence filled the abbey.

In the silence of the abbey, the aged nun prayed on worn knees to a judging God.

The abbey grew upwards, stretching, expanding with silent prayer. Sister Agatha wanted the God that went away. Her knees ached on the cold stone; her skin thin protection; her habit worn shield; her resolve, withered but rising.

Under her habit, the aging nun felt herself growing cold. The cold stones beneath her knees sent shivers up her spine. Her God now only spoke to her through her aches and pains. Long gone was the enthusiasm of the Novitiate she had been. An old and silent God now the only companion of the disbelieving nun.

God raped the nun's mind as she lay dying on the cold stones. Her brain bled, and shed her thousand prayers.

"Fuck you God!" She liked to challenge the heavenly father; after all, what was one more Hail Mary to an aging nun.

---

Late at night, agter all the neighbors went to sleep, Mrs. McMurty went about the business of murdering.

Mrs. McMurtry opened the knife cabinet. The neighbors were still asleep.

She only ventured out after everyone was asleep. With knife in hand, she tip-toed into the night to deliver justice upon the wife beaters.

Ed was not aware that Mrs. McMurtry intended to murder him. The knife slashed through his throat before he could awaken. Mrs. McMurtry watched his blood soak into his ample wife-beater.

The knife was a silent instrument of justice in her hand. Its serrated edge the only hard evidence a human, not divine, hand had inflicted punishment.

Justice was served on the edge of the common kitchen blade. It was also used for cutting cake.

Justice, like cake, is best served in small portions.

I murdered him slowly...with the cake knife, still covered in icing from my daughter's birthday.

After the murder, I wiped the knife clean and returned it to the butcher-block. How appropriate, wouldn't you say?

Okay, I signed up for Kaiser health insurance in May. I got a card in the mail, so I assumed that I had been signed up. I didn't get a welcome package though, but I was signed up with them previously so I thought maybe they were saving paper or something. I didn't receive a bill for June. I was beginning to get worried, that maybe the card was just an automatic yearly replacement. Finally, today, I got a notice of cancellation, for not paying for June! Fortunately, the deadline is the end of the month, but jeez-louise.

A graphic word generator has been going around on Flickr like a virus. FluffyKittens takes your tag list and formats it so you can paste it into the Wordle generator, and get output similar to what you see on the left. Fun!

One of my photos posted on Flickr was included in an article on Donut Day by NowPublic. My friend Steve, who is in the photo approved it's use. NowPublic is a crowdsourcing news site.